"Josh Billings.".
From an Old Print.
"Menny people," he says, "spend their time trieing to find the hole whar sin got into the world. If two men brake through the ice into a mill-pond, they had better hunt for some good hole tew get out rather than get into a long argument ahout the hole they cum to fall in."
"There is a great deal of religion in this world that is like a life preserver, only put on at the moment of extreme danger, and then half the time put on hind side hefore."
"Sin in the soul iz like a slivver in the flesh; mortifikashun iz the natral way tew git rid ov it."
"Next to a klear conshunce for solid comfort cums an eazy boot. Try both."
It would be hard to find a more graphic description than his few piquant lines give us of the old fashioned pedlar, familiar not many years ago in every country village:
"Joel Briggs waz horn down east, his hight waz 6 foot 2;
His panterloons waz striped, and hitched beneath his shu.
Joel Briggs a pedlar waz, a pedlar ov renoun
He dealt in tin war and sitch, and druv from town to town.
His kart waz a karavan, piled hi with every kind
Ov dikker yu kould name, hesides sumthin hitched hehind."
Mr. Shaw's humor does not perhaps provoke a downright laugh so often as the humor of some others; it rather